LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. – The large Rider crowd had worked itself into a frenzied lather as Stony Brook’s 13-point lead was erased.

For most of Tuesday’s 6 a.m. tip-off nationally televised contest, Dave Coley battled foul trouble. Yet, with the ball on the left wing, he never hesitated as he sank a clutch bank shot, the go-ahead hoop in the Seawolves’ impressive 54-46 victory at Alumni Gymnasium in Central New Jersey during ESPN’s 24-hour college basketball marathon.

The former Thomas Jefferson star from Brooklyn would add four clutch free throws, including two with 28 seconds left to extend Stony Brook’s lead to five, in another big early-season performance.

Coley, who scored 12 points in Tuesday’s victory, also came up big down the stretch in the Long Island school’s season-opening, 60-57 road win at MAAC foe Marist, dropping in seven points in the final 3:25 of regulation.

“It would be great if I could get off early in games, but it isn’t about how you start, but how you finish,” said Coley, who averaged 10 points per game as a sophomore and was a third team all-America East preseason selection by the league’s coaches. “I’m pretty composed now that I’m a junior. That is [when] players play, ballers ball.”

Coley was one pivotal factor in the victory. The biggest reason for the win, Stony Brook (3-0) coach Steve Pikiell said, was his team’s defense, holding explosive Rider to just 46 points, 33 less points than it scored in a season-opening rout of NEC contender Robert Morris.

“We won the game because we stopped them at the end,” Pikiell said. “This is what we do. We defend, we play good teams on the road, and we have to find ways to win.”

Coley, a freakishly athletic and silky-smooth 6-foot-2 guard, has a different role this year for Stony Brook after a few key losses due to graduation. He’s being asked to be one of the team’s playmakers, along with senior wing Tommy Brenton and junior guard Anthony Jackson. No longer is he merely a secondary contributor in this, his junior year, as the Seawolves look to get over the hump and reach the NCAA tournament after back-to-back America East Tournament runner-up finishes.

Coley can still be hesitant, deferring to others. A sound passer and high IQ kid, that isn’t necessarily a negative.

So far this season, when the game is on the line, the aggression his coaches would love to see all the time comes out.

“Late in games, he looks at me, and he’s very confident,” Pikiell said. “He’s really spent a lot of time working on his game. I feel confident running his number.”